TSARI awareness day

Today the kids and I headed to the Providence Children's Museum for the TS Awareness Day. We got there early so we enjoyed the museum and then settled down to some new faces and some familiar faces. It was great to see some old friends, though we didn't really have too much of a chance to chat since we had to leave early, but still nice. We also met some new people, which was fantastic.
Once the program started we were treated to a wonderful presentation by Matt Giordano, who started out by having 4 members of the audience hold what I can best describe as drum heads with a rim around them that you hold. He performed an amazing piece for us, and then gave a great motivational presentation. He spoke a little bit about his own life and what he did to develop his drumming talent, and also about growing up with TS. He talked a lot about attitude and thinking of TS as a gift. He also did a really great simulation of what it's like to have TS- he had us count as quickly as we could by 2s for 30 seconds in our heads. I got to 108. He then told us that we were going to do it again, but this time we were going to have a "tic". Everytime that he beat the drum  during the 30 seconds, we had to touch our knees, then our elbows, then our shoulders. Then he told us that we were going to have an OCD symptom as well so that every time we got to a number divisible by 10, we had to go back 2. So instead of 2,4,6,8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 it would be 2,4,6,8,10,8,6,810,12,14, 16,18,20,18,16,18,20,22
The second time I got to 26. No wonder kids with TS have a hard time focusing!
After that most of the crowd (including anyone who wanted to join in who hapeened to be visiting the museum) participated in a drum circle- great fun.
I love TSARI, not only because the group has been a tremendous source of support, but it's really wonderful being around an entire group of people where no explanation is needed. My husband and I are in complete agreement that home is a place where Liam should be able to tic completely freely, but it's great to have another safe haven where no explanation is needed and there's no odd glances or comments and Liam doesn't have to even think about his tics.